Episode Notes

On the twenty-eighth installment of The Link Up with Latesha, our incredible host Latesha Byrd, founder of Byrd Career Consulting, touches on the concepts of life design and positioning, and she offers up several pieces of advice to help you prepare and train for your next season. She also talks a bit about her free webinar coming up on June 29th entitled “Black Women Breaking the Black Ceiling at Work: Don’t Just Tell Me You Stand With Me, Give Me My Coin.” Over 1,100 people have registered to attend so far – check the links in the show notes to add your name to the list today!

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TRANSCRIPT
Latesha: Hey, hey. Welcome to another episode of The Link Up with Latesha. It’s only been two weeks since I talked to you all last, but it feels like it’s been two years. Why is it still June 2020? I don’t know. I struggle with wondering why time is going by so fast and also why time is going by so slow at the same time, you know? Like Erykah Badu said in her Verzuz with Jill Scott, “I have no concept of time,” and that is literally my life. So anyways, I’m really excited to be able to talk to you all, and so many things have actually been happening in my world and in my business. If we’re connected on social media, you know, I try to be as transparent about my journey as much as possible, and so something that I want to do talk about during this episode is preparing and training for the next season. Whatever you are working towards right now, everything you’re working for, it’s going to come to fruition, and I am living proof of that. Not to talk about me the whole time, but I just wanted to share with you all that I have worked so hard over the past five years since growing my business, and I’m in this place to where it’s requiring a different level of me, and the two main things that I have been thinking about a lot lately, which I want to share with you all and want you all to start thinking about for your life, is life design and positioning. Life design and positioning, and one of my goals is to write a book in 2021, and I think the book is going to be about this, so y’all mark my words. So you have been probably rocking with me, you know, since I’ve been able to have this platform with Living Corporate, and I’ve learned a lot about myself during this season, and everything that I’ve worked for, I feel like it’s happening. Businesses are reaching out to me to do training for their employees. They’re reaching out to me to help them with developing culture and talent and leaders in their organizations. A lot of, you know, media publications have been reaching out, and I am just like, “Yo, who are y’all reaching out to? Me?” And so I’m having to remind myself and speak over myself with intentionality every single day. So I want to thank you all for rocking with me, and let’s go ahead and just talk about training for the next season, because I have been training for this season for the past five years, and I’m finally at my season. I think it’s all about the mindset, and what I’ve been doing during this whole quarantining experience is a lot of unlearning, a lot of unconditioning, a lot of challenging, literally challenging everything, everything that we’ve been taught, everything that we’ve been told. I’m doing my own research and my own reading to think harder, and it’s hard. It’s hard to be on this journey, so if you’re on this journey let me know. Please hit me up and tell me how this journey has been going for you. My first question to you all is what is this season of your life telling you? This stillness right now is pretty uncomfortable, right? Especially for those of us who love to travel. You know, we are always hanging out with friends and family and doing this and doing that, and all that stopped, right? Like, literally, like, all of that stopped due to this pandemic, and it’s like we’re living through a Black Mirror episode and it’s, like, a never-ending episode, right? What I realized though is that we were so used to traveling, spending time or doing other things to really distract us from facing who we are, and as a career coach, as a business coach, as someone that talks to people every single day about their life and their career, they’re having to really face themselves in a new way, and it’s a bit unearthing, you know? It’s a bit unfamiliar. So my question that I’m asking you is what is this season of your life telling you? What are you learning about yourself? What are you having to unlearn about yourself? Because hey, there are no other distractions right now, and if you haven’t thought about that I would encourage you to really start to think about that. So next thing is life design. I mentioned that two things I wanted to talk about today was life design and positioning. So when I say life design, I don’t mean what’s your, like, next job that you want, right? That’s not what I mean here. What I mean by life design is what type of life do you want to live? What type of life are you creating for yourself? This is a very, very good time to really think about life design, okay? So many of us were, you know, living behind our accomplishments and, you know, traveling, and all the money that we’re making, but if you don’t truly have anything to spend that money on right now, right–’cause, like, I know for me personally, my money is going to groceries. [laughs] Like, that’s it. So think about, like, what is that life that you are truly wanting to design for yourself? And I also mean how do you want to feel when you wake up every day. Think about who you want to become. Don’t just think about what you want to do, think about who you want to become. That’s really what I’ve been thinking about as it relates to life design and thinking about the moves that I need to make from a spiritual level and a mental level to get there, okay? The next thing I want to say when it comes to life design is put your dream job or dream business together. I want you to think about who is that person that you want to become, who is she? Who is he? Who are they? But think about that and put that dream job, dream career, dream business together. That’s what I did earlier–actually earlier this week, y’all, I’ma be straight up. You know, earlier this week, because things have been moving so quickly I said, “Let me think about who I want to be and what I want my business to become,” and I see that it’s going to happen much much more sooner than later, but I had to lay it all out, and that clarity, it really can come through asking yourself these tough, hard questions without any distractions. And then I want to just share some tips with you all that have been helping me just kind of get through this period as I am training for the next season and kind of at the same time crossing into that next season. So once you think about what this season of life is telling you and you start to put that dream life design together, start thinking–and this is where you will be retraining your brain–start thinking best case scenario. Best case scenario. Not worst case scenario–that’s where we typically go, right?–but best case scenario. That’s hard. That’s hard for a lot of us, and something that I’ve been thinking about is “Well, why do I always think worst case scenario?” And for me personally–and I’m being brutally honest on this podcast today–I think worse case scenario because, you know, I grew up in a household where we didn’t have a lot, you know? I lived off of surviving, so now transitioning from surviving to thriving has been very hard for me. So I have to write affirmations, and I have to write those affirmations every morning and say those out loud and tell myself, “You deserve everything that you work for. You’ve worked for it. No one is taking it away from you,” and I have to remind myself of these things throughout the day. So start thinking best case scenario–and words matter. Language matters. What you are saying to yourself matters, and I’m also having to catch myself in conversations with others, and this is why I do think having a coach, you know, having a business coach, a career coach, having a friend that is a really good listener, you know? A therapist that can help you and pinpoint those things that you are saying about yourself out loud, and I didn’t realize how I was speaking over myself and my life until I started having these very transparent and real conversations with my business coach and a couple of my close friends who are very intelligent, and one is also a business coach, and she said, “I want you to hear the things that you’re saying,” and they’re calling me out on my words. This is why I think that words matter. Pay attention to the words that you’re using, especially when you’re speaking about yourself. Next tip. It’s not “it is what it is,” it is what you make it. It is what you make it. I was talking to a friend and was sharing something that I was upset about that happened and wasn’t sure how to move forward, and I said, “It is what it is,” and my friend said, “No, it is what you make it,” and–y’all ever, like, have someone tell you something and you have to–you just kind of stop dead in your tracks like, “Man, that was… can you say that again?” And I literally was like, “Where did that come from? How did you know to say that?” And I really needed that. When you say things like “it is what it is,” like, you are surrendering, right? That is you are surrendering. That is self-defeat that is starting take over. We have a lot more control over the things that we start to give up hope on. So instead of you, again, thinking about or just saying “It is what it is,” say “It is what I make it. How can I make this work for me?” Okay? Next tip. Monitor and observe your thoughts. I think that is pretty straight-forward, especially at this time. Start to monitor and observe your thoughts. Next is setting boundaries and controlling your schedule. Like, please, I can’t say this enough. And this actually leads me to my next tip – create your own terms and conditions. This is something that my business coach has me actually working on, creating my own terms and conditions, meaning when you think about, again, that life design, what are the terms and conditions that you need to be creating for your own life? We know what terms and conditions are. We signed agreements, you know? When you get a credit card, when you get a bank account, shoot, you know, an offer letter, right, any contract that you sign, there are terms and conditions. You want to have your own personal terms and conditions, and I encourage you to split this up into areas, okay? So that’s going to be physical, spiritual, mental, financial, and then you want to, under each of those categories, split them up into many mission statements–not goals, but manifestations, affirmations. You don’t want to say, “This is what I want to be.” You want to kind of word to the point where you’re saying, “This is what I’m doing, and this is what I’m creating for myself.” For example, so instead of saying you want to feel better mentally, you would say, “I am renewing my energy and reclaiming my peace daily through meditation, yoga, and journaling.” So create your own terms and conditions, okay? And those are my tips. So I guess today was really about life design, and so what I’m thinking is on the next Link Up with Latesha I will talk about that positioning piece. So y’all got some homework. [laughs] You got some homework. Think about that life design. I really want you to think about that life design and start to believe that for yourself, okay? With that being said, I am excited to share that I have a masterclass coming up, and I’m gonna be talking about some of these things a lot more. Monday, June 29th. Yes. It is for black women, okay? And we are talking about don’t tell me you stand for me. Give me my coins, you know? I think that we are sick and tired of these blanket statements, and we are underpaid. Black women are underpaid at work, you know? We are overworked. We are not promoted, we’re not supported, and I have so many incredible, talented, ambitious black women that reach out to me every single day about the challenges that they’re having. It’s extremely disheartening, it’s extremely frustrating and angering, even for me. I’ll be honest with you all. As a career coach, if I could give everybody, you know, that six-figure job and they could come and work for me, like, I would, I really would. So on this webinar I’m going to be talking about the struggles and challenges that we face, and the sad thing is that the gender pay gap, gender wage gap, has not changed. Like, 40, 50 years, y’all. We’re still where we are. That is crazy, but the cost of living has significantly increased, and more black women are graduating from college. More black women are starting businesses. Businesses are underfunded too, right? So, like, there’s so many challenges that we are up against, and so I’m seeing that there’s a lot of content for everyone else. “Here’s how to be an ally. Here’s how to support your black friends.” But where is the content, where is the support, like, where is the guidance for us at this time? So this is what Monday night’s webinar is about. 1,100 people have registered, 1,100, and I am blown away. I am so excited. I hope that you all can make it. It’s really going to be an incredible time that we’ll be spending together where if we need to cry–’cause I might start crying to be honest with you. [laughs] I’ma try not to so I don’t mess up my makeup, but yeah, like, this is going to be a safe space for us where we feel supported, and I’m going to give you some tips on really how you can break that ceiling. So thank y’all so much, and I hope that I will see you on Monday. And also, I will drop the link in the show notes so you have that, but if this was helpful, please let me know. All right, y’all. Peace.

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